- Josh Cooper of the Tennessean: Predators goalie Pekka Rinne is entering the last year of his 2 year, $6.8 million deal.
“I think back then (in 2009-10) that was a good learning experience, just to focus on my game. There’s nothing else you can do,” Rinne said. “I’m sure things will take care of themselves. It’s interesting to see what’s going to happen. I love it here. This city and organization, I love, so we’ll see.”
- Josh Cooper of the Tennessean: The Predators have 6 players vying for 3 spots along the blueline. 4 of the 6 are offensive minded: Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm, Jack Hillen and Roman Josi. Teemu Laakso and Tyler Sloan are more defensive minded.
- Jesse Spector of the NY Daily News: Rangers defenseman Marc Staal will not play in a preseason game until the team heads to Europe. Staal experienced some headaches during his offseason workouts. He sustained a previously undisclosed concussion in February after taking a hit from his brother Eric. The Rangers are hoping to have him ready by their season opener on Oct. 7th in Stockholm. From John Tortorella:
“Marc Staal (is) progressing nicely. Again, we just want to be cautious with him to try to get him ready for the regular season. Again, especially the past few days, he feels better after the workouts. So we’re real happy where it’s going with him right now.”
- James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail: The Leafs are hoping they’ve added enough scoring punch with Tim Connolly, Joffrey Lupul, Matt Lombardi and Phillippe Dupuis to increase their scoring depth up front this year. Last year their top 4 (Kessel, Kulemin, Grabovski and MacArthur) scored 112 goals, while the rest of the lineup only scored 66 goals. The league average for top 4 scorers was 102.8, with the depth forwards scoring 110.5 goals.
- Andy Strickland of True Hockey: Many think that the Canucks could trade goalie Cory Schneider during training camp at the earliest or the trade deadline day at the latest. The Blue Jackets and Coyotes have apparently expressed some interest. The asking price for Schneider would likely be a combination of at least a 1st round pick and a roster player that could help the team today.
- Katie Carrera of the Washington Post: Capitals winger Alexander Semin isn’t worried what former teammates Matt Bradley and David Steckel said about him. Semin signed a 1 year deal, but hopes he can stay in Washington for the next 10 years.
- Damian Cristodero of the St. Petersburg Times: The Lightning lack organizational depth. Other than Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, they haven’t had much success in drafting. From 1999-2007 they didn’t draft any impact players despite having 14 1st and 2nd round picks. When Yzerman took over in 2010 he said “The first thing is we have to rebuild the whole depth.” Yzerman added that it takes about 5 years to evaluate drafts but things should be improving with some of the players they have drafted since 2008.
- John Vogl of the Buffalo News: The Sabres may have up to 8 NHL ready defenseman with only 6 starting spots: Tyler Myers, Andrej Sekera, Mike Weber, Marc-Andre Gragnani, Jordan Leopold, Christian Ehrhoff, Robyn Regehr and Shaone Morrisonn. Sekera has a new 4 year, $11 million deal. Morrisonn has a $2.075 million cap it.
- Slava Malamud via twitter: KHL’s Vityaz is trying to sign Alexei Yashin.
- Ed Tait and Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press: Jets’ coach Claude Noel said there may only be 2 or 3 roster spots open at this years camp.
- Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times: Blackhawks Patrick Sharp, recovering from an appendectomy, hopes to be ready for the season.
“Hopefully, as soon as possible,” Sharp said. “The timeline was three to four weeks right so around the start of the season. I don’t want to miss any games so I’m pushing to play the first game of the season.”
- Joe Yerdon of Pro Hockey Talk: Kyle Turris is looking for a new deal worth between $3 and $4 million per season, which makes no sense to Coyotes GM Don Maloney:
“This is just so illogical, from our standpoint, the position he’s taken it makes absolutely no sense to me,” Maloney said.
“I have no intention of trading him whatsoever. We still think he’s a young, developing player but he’s still developing. Once you’re a proven 30 or 40-goal, 80 point guy then, yes, you get the brass ring. But until you get there you have to settle… Well, again, that’s what makes America great he doesn’t have to settle. He can stay at home and watch Oprah.”
Maloney on why they aren’t interested in trading him and why they aren’t giving in,
“Well I think Kyle believes in himself. He believes he’s a good player in this league and we’d certainly like more opportunity for him to show it,” Maloney said.
“But we’re not a developing team, we’re here to win, we’re here to win now. He showed a step forward in the playoffs last year. That’s why we’d like to get him back. We’d like to show that process and that step forward and the production we need out of Kyle Turris to be a good offensive player. But it’s not there yet… You have to perform before you get paid.”